


Every Light in the City

by hooksandheroics



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Best Friends to Lovers, F/M, Fluff, childhood best friends, long distance, soldier!bellamy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-17
Updated: 2015-07-17
Packaged: 2018-04-09 19:30:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4361447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hooksandheroics/pseuds/hooksandheroics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke turns twelve, runs away from her birthday party, and becomes best friends with Bellamy Blake, the trouble.</p><p>Clarke turns eighteen, and Bellamy hugs her goodbye before he goes away for the army.</p><p>Clarke turns twenty, loses contact with him, and realizes that, yeah. She's in love with Bellamy Blake -- and she may not get the chance to tell him so.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Every Light in the City

**Author's Note:**

> Finally out of my dormant phase, here's a thing that's all fluff, a smidgen of angst, and long distance because I'm missing a someone right now and it's hard. So.

Clarke is twelve, it's her birthday party, but she's missing and nobody knows where she is.

Her mother, with her godawful bright yellow blouse and her hair in a bun, is looking for her all over their little neighborhood -- knocking on doors and fences, going "have you seen Clarke? It's her birthday party, but she ran away."

The thing is for Clarke, the birthday party has always been too much. Every year ever since she can remember, her parties are always so full of people. Children from her school and children from the neighborhood, and their parents, people that she doesn't know all swarm to their huge front lawn bearing all these gifts that she doesn't like or care for.

The only person who can talk her down from escaping to the small playground park behind that shabby blue house was her father. He always found a way to make her stay and actually enjoy -- danced with her until she's breathless with laughter and her cheeks hurt from too much smiling. He can't do that anymore, Clarke thinks bitterly, kicking the ground so that the swing goes higher up the air.

Jake Griffin met an untimely death four months before her 12th birthday after being run over by a truck. She doesn't know about everyone else but four months are too short to get over the death of the only person who understands her. Her mother seems over it already, which makes this whole mess suckier than it already was. And seeing her smile at the guests as if she was always meant to stand at the gates alone makes Clarke sick... it sucks.

"What does?"

Clarke whirls her head around to look behind her, her tiara almost falling off her head. She comes eye to eye with a boy, tall and lanky and dirty. Like he's been shoveling dirt all day, or well at least that's how Jake always looks like after a morning of gardening.

She knows this boy -- he's Bellamy Blake. He goes to the same school as her with his sister, Octavia. He's a couple of years older than her, she's a couple of years older than his sister. She knows Bellamy Blake because he gets sent to Abby's clinic almost thrice a week every week, twice maybe if he's having a good run, always sporting a bleeding nose or a bruised cheek.

She scowls at him because he's trouble and also because he's freaking sneaky. "Nothing," she replies, turning her gaze forward once more. Maybe if she ignores him, he'll evaporate into thin air.

It doesn't work, unfortunately. "Where's your castle, princess?"

"Not a princess," she replies, annoyed now.

"Your crown and dress say otherwise." He's perched on the swing beside her, kicking his leg out. He starts moving small, a cheeky grin on his face.

She doesn't answer, just pulls the tiara from her hair and drops it on the ground, but he presses on. The nerve. "Is there a reward if I find the missing princess?"

She glares at him, and he only chuckles. Sure, his freckles remind her of the dusting of cinnamon on the whipped cream atop her hot chocolate every Saturday morning, and his hair is so curly, but he's still stupid and his smile is stupid and he's stupidly tall.

"No."

"Aren't princesses trained to be polite?"

"Don't you have better things to do?"

"I don't, actually. Octavia's already home, and mom's cooking lunch. Do you want to come inside?"

It takes her aback, the total change in his haughty tone to a kind, fond one. Does he know? Maybe he does, everybody in the neighborhood was there on the day of the funeral.

"Inside? Where?"

He points at the shabby blue house in front of them, giving her a small grin. "That's home. You're sad, I figured mom's homemade dishes can cheer you up."

"You don't even know me," she says, her brows raised.

He frowns at her in disbelief. "I do. You're the doctor's daughter. You swabbed my knuckles that one time."

"You remember that?"

"Of course -- you were very aggressive. I think you did more damage to my hand than the brick wall I punched."

"You're weird."

He raises his brows, smile confident and bright. "I am. Are you coming with me?"

She wants to weigh the consequences like she always does, but she thinks 'what the hell' and goes after him and into the shabby but warm house.

As it turns out, Aurora Blake would work her way up Clarke’s list of the warmest human beings she has ever met almost as instantly as the moment she smiled at her, the fondest, kindest grin before the tightest hug she’s ever been enveloped in. Clarke feels the tears run down her cheeks even before she could register she’s going to cry, droplets landing on Aurora’s purple apron.

She misses Jake so much. He used to pick her up from the ground and carry her around in a dance every year on her birthday, and it felt a little bit like this but warmer and more loving.

Aurora is down on her knees in front of her, hands on the puffed up sleeves of her dress. “What’s wrong, little princess? Do you miss your daddy?” she asks, her thumb catching the tears with practiced finesse. Figures, she has two children. She must have done this a lot of times.

Clarke nods because her throat is stuck and her tears are coming on fast. Aurora gets up and smiles at her, and then leads her by the hand to the small rectangular table that only has three chairs. One is already occupied by a young, dark-haired girl that could only be Octavia, the other one is where Bellamy is heading to. The last chair is where the older woman gently shoves Clarke into, settling her with a smile and a hand over her curls.

“Eat lunch with us, little princess,” she says, affectionate. “And then maybe spend the afternoon with us. You’d like that?”

She nods with an enthusiasm that surprises her, suddenly deciding that it would be better spending her first birthday without her dad with the Blakes.

Bellamy frowns from across Clarke. “Her mom might be looking for her.”

Aurora smiles and winks at both of them. “We’ll figure it out later.”

Nobody dares argue with her after that, partially because the chicken casserole and the flan are mouth watering and delicious and the three children spend the next half hour inhaling their lunch.

Clarke discovers that day that Octavia isn't as quiet as she first seemed to be, and that Bellamy isn't as annoying as he appears to be.

He's actually pretty decent with ball games, although she managed to beat him in basketball even in her dress. He is a sore loser, though, but Clarke takes her victories pretty ungraciously so it might be a little bit her fault that he's now frowning. His sister's her cheerleader as well, so Bellamy is a grumpy puppy after the game.

“You’re smaller than me!” he grouses, plopping down on the same seat beside her on the swing set, arms crossed in front of his chest. Octavia has already ran back into the house, chattering about cookies and some cartoon on the TV. He looks ridiculous with that pout and she finds it hilarious. The sun is setting and the light reflects on his skin, making him look orange and weird; it makes her smile.

“You take this too seriously,” she says, grinning at him even wider when his frown gets deeper.

“You’re twelve,” he mumbles.

She shrugs because he’s not wrong, and then he doesn’t say anything else afterwards, just looks ahead to where his little blue house sits, a small smile replacing the grumpy scowl he had just a few seconds ago. He looks like he’s remembering something happy.

“Mom already called your mom,” he says, and it somehow brings Clarke back to the present. “She convinced her that you’re fine with us.”

“How did she do that?” she asks because Abby Griffin is not a woman that is easily persuaded.

“My mom works magic,” he replies, grinning proudly at her.

“Her food is amazing,” she agrees. And then there’s silence again. Clarke feels lightheaded, but in a good way. Like the way she does after riding a rollercoaster, but without the dizzy part.

“So… did you have fun?” he asks again, like it’s actually important to him that she’s happy. She thinks back to the events of the day, from running away from the party to how she ended up beating Bellamy Blake in a couple of basketball one-on-one games. It’s the weirdest day ever, quite possibly the weirdest birthday she has ever had. But…

“I feel like there’s something missing,” she says quietly, her eyes cast down on the dirt next to her feet. "My dad... he used to dance with me every year on my birthday, it's -- nothing special, forget it."

That's a lie, but he doesn't need to know that. And maybe she can get through this birthday without a dance from her father, all her next birthdays will be like this, after all. It's practice.

But Bellamy jumps to the ground and stands in front of her, hand outstretched. "If it's important to you, it's something," he says, smiling. "May I have a dance with the princess?"

She glares some more as it is the only reaction she can let out instead of cluing him in on the butterflies in her stomach. He looks unfazed, just shakes his hand even farther up her line of vision, so she relents, takes it, and stands.

She doesn’t drop her glare, though. “Do you even know how to dance?”

He looks appalled, but like on the verge of it being mocking. She can’t quite figure out. “You wound me, princess.”

She purses her lips, annoyed. “Well do you?”

His frown turns into a grin and he shakes his head. “No, but you do and you’re going to teach me.”

She huffs, but as it turns out, Bellamy Blake isn’t so bad once he got his footing right. Her bright yellow shoes look more brownish afterwards, but his grin at her, the one he gives when he’s confident enough to not look at his feet as they move, is warm and cute and it takes her mind off of how crazy this is that they’re dancing without music. And she feels better now. She really does.

They’re walking to his house when he shoots her another smile, and she wonders how many more until she doesn’t feel those butterflies anymore. “You’re pretty good at that,” he says.

“You don’t get to judge, Blake, you didn’t even know how until I showed you,” she retorts, but there’s a smile on her lips again, genuine, the kind that she feels in her chest.

When they get to the blue house’s front lawn, Clarke’s mom is there, still in her godawful yellow blouse, her neat bun a little bit frazzled, but she grins when she spots her daughter. Aurora is there, as well, and they look like they were having a conversation.

“Hi, sweetie,” Abby says, scooping Clarke up from under her armpits, and Clarke melts into her despite her initial contempt. She does love her mom, even if she’s a bit off putting at times. “I hope you had fun,” she adds when she settles Clarke down on the ground. Clarke gives her a small nod.

“I did,” she replies, and then looks back to Bellamy who’s unsubtly giving her two thumbs-up. Abby is looking at him, too, a kind of begrudging acceptance in her eyes. Clarke just smiles at Bellamy.

“Well, I guess we better go then,” her mother says to both Aurora and Bellamy. “But… uh, we have a little get together dinner party this weekend. If you’re free, you’re all welcome to join us.”

Aurora smiles at both of them. “We will be there.”

And they were there, along with the next few barbeques and parties and Christmases, and suddenly, Clarke is fifteen on her fifteenth birthday, standing on the balcony of her room with Bellamy, away from the party downstairs.

Somehow, just like her and her dad's dance, her dance with Bellamy became some sort of a tradition. Not that they always planned to do it every year -- it's just that they always find each other in the crowd (now that Bellamy and his family are always invited) and somehow find themselves a little bit of a quiet time. It always starts with a smile, an outstretched hand, and a...

"May I have a dance with the princess?" he says now, half leaning on the railing,with his hand held out to him. He's wearing a tiny smile that may have been a smirk. With him, she never knows for sure.

There are a lot of things about him that she never knows for sure, Clarke realizes. Like how she barely recognized, let alone appreciated, how he's grown from the tall and lanky framed boy to this teenager with a permanent bedhead and a chest puffing out in his tight black shirt. Or how once upon a time, his freckles reminded her of cinnamon on her chocolate drink, but now it reminds her of the countless nights spent on the swing set gazing up at the stars, Clarke learning about the reason behind Bellamy's mysterious trips to the clinic ("Octavia is really small for her age, and she's in advanced grade. The kids there are brutal. I know she'll grow and learn how to stand up to them, but until then, I'm taking the blows. And I'm not holding back punches.").

Bellamy learning about Clarke's weird crush on Raven Reyes. ("I mean, she's a girl. But she's amazing, and is a genius and she kicks ass and she's really pretty."

"It's not weird. Well, you are weird, but your thing with Raven, it's normal.")

Or how they never defined it, but they're totally best friends at this point. Clarke could never name this any other way.

She rolls her eyes to show her pretend-exasperation, but smiles at him nevertheless, grasping his warm hand in hers. "Yes, you may," she answers, just like all those times before.

They start moving, and it's comfort. He's smiling down at her, eyes crinkled at the corners, like there's a joke being shared between their stares. She, in turn, smiles as well because he rarely does this but when he does, it's infectious and genuine and real.

"You're good at this," she says, and this earns her a chuckle that she feels deep in her bones. She likes it.

"Well, it's you who taught me," he replies, hugging her close, burying his nose in her hair -- a kind of affection that's not new to Clarke, but always awakens the butterflies in her stomach.

She leans her forehead on his chest. "You're my best friend," she says like she's only discovering it now, but also like she's been saying it ever since they met.

"Yeah, and you're mine."

And they are. Each other's. It's easy and simple when he picks her and Octavia up from school in his beat up truck and drops her off first before rounding the block to their blue house. And when he helps her study for her exams and frowns at anything that's not history or math ("Why the hell are you taking Advanced Biology?"

"Because I really like it, moron.").

And when he falls asleep on Clarke's couch with his head on her lap and she changes the channel so that when he wakes up, it's to a replay of a High School Musical movie and he's frowny all throughout.

When it's raining and he's playing a quiet 40s jazz from his phone and she's lounging on his bed, half asleep.

When there's an ice cream van and they rush outside like little kids and the last one out pays for everything.

When Finn Collins breaks up with her and it's all weird and painful and numb and he hugs her so tight she thinks she's going to cry into his shirt for all eternity.

It's easy and she loves him and it's simple. Until it isn't.

Until she's eighteen and it's her eighteenth birthday and they're standing on his truck bed and he says, "I've enlisted for the Army."

And then she feels her heart break in her chest the way she thinks it would feel to get hit by a ton of bricks, crushing and sudden and strong. "On my birthday? Really, Bellamy?"

She could try to be reasonable about this. But she's livid and there's a million reasons why, but the frontrunner is that she already feels herself missing him for god knows how long he's going to be away and that she doesn't remember her life before Bellamy Blake and she's going away to college expecting to visit and go back to his arms every goddamn week, but now she could never, and damn it, she's crying as he explains himself -- something about their money going to Octavia's college fund and this is the most viable way to get him through his own college education and Clarke hates it.

She hates it so much, god fucking dammit, she hates it and he's there enveloping her in his embrace, warm and comforting and solid. As if he's not going anywhere. Except that he is.

"I will miss you. So much," he says, his lips moving against her forehead.

"Fuck you," she mumbles into his shirt. He holds on tighter.

*

They Skype almost everyday, and if Clarke closes her eyes, her dorm room turns into her old room and he's there bugging her about thick textbooks and making immature jokes about the scientific names of the parts of the human genitalia.

But she misses him so much and doesn’t skip a Skype session without telling him. “And if you’re planning on surprising me any time soon, the spare key to my door is under Jasper’s mat three doors down the hall. Just putting it out there.”

“I can imagine some really confused robbers,” he says.

She sticks her tongue out at his slightly pixelated form on the screen of her computer and continues highlighting every other word on her reading.

She meets Nathan Miller one night, when he walked behind Bellamy without a shirt on and she says, "Who's that?" with the enthusiasm of a suburban housewife who's just seen her hot new neighbor.

Miller comes back to view, probably having heard her unsubtle exclamation. Bellamy looks annoyed and mildly put off, but introduces them to each other anyway.

"So you're the Clarke Griffin," Miller says, grinning.

"Excuse me?"

"This guy," he elbows Bellamy who still looks like he's swallowed a whole lemon. "Never shuts up about 'Clarke is a med student', 'Clarke's sandwiches are better', 'Clarke probably knows the answer to that crossword puzzle'. Honestly --"

He doesn't get to finish because she's laughing, amused, and Bellamy's hand is clasped tightly on his mouth.

They continue to thrash around until Bellamy successfully wrestles him out of view. "Sorry, Miller's a dick," he says, voice increasing in volume, and Clarke could only guess the other man has stayed behind the camera.

But then she hears Miller say, "and gay", and Bellamy looks a bit surprised and relieved at the same time.

Clarke has to bite in her laugh. "Don't worry, Bell. I'm all yours," she teases almost mindlessly, and then watches as he ducks his head, a shy smile on his lips and a flush on his cheeks.

It's cute, endearing. And hot. In a way that men are when they're flustered. And he's definitely flustered.

She files this image away in her memory, and then pulls it out during her most boring class, making Professor Indra scowl at her obvious daydreaming grin.

And it's all fine, really. She was getting by without him there physically. She gets a girlfriend in college, a girl named Lexa, with wide green eyes and a vibe around her that gives off massive 'don't fuck with me' signals and it's awesome.

They break up after two months and she tells Bellamy about it, just like she does every aspect of her life.

He frowns at the screen, but she's distracted by his bare chest. It's hot there, he had said. Well, alright.

"Hm, what?" she says intelligently when she misses what he was saying.

"I said should I be angry-Bellamy or understanding-Bellamy?" he repeats.

And just because it's hilarious when he tries his acting chops, she says, "Angry, definitely."

He pouts his lips, narrows his eyes, and crosses his arms in front of his chest. It's ridiculous -- he looks ridiculous and it immediately fills her chest with glee. "How dare she leave you?!" he intones in his best 'angry' voice which is just a higher pitched voice. "The most amazing, smartest, prettiest, most beautiful pre-med student in all the lands?!"

She laughs at this, loud and carefree and happy. Happier than she's been in months. "How dare she, indeed," she says, shaking her head in mock agreement.

"Yeah," he replies, and suddenly his tone is changed. New. Lower and barely above a whisper. He's staring at his lap, absently picking on a loose thread. "Indeed."

But it's all still fine until her nineteenth birthday and it's late at night and she's stressing out over this one paper that she's supposed to turn in tomorrow.

Her glasses sit low on the bridge of her nose, a pencil stuck somewhere in her hair, pillow hugged between her and the desk, and a mug of tea to the side. Cage Wallace is an asshole who likes to torment his students with copious amounts of homework and papers, and Clarke is on her path to defy all odds in his class. It just so happens that this is one of his harder essays and she’s fully concentrated on it that when her Skype chimes its familiar tone, she almost jumps out of her skin, glasses clattering down the desk.

She opens the call and it's Bellamy, he's grinning from ear to ear, and the first thing he says is, "May I have a dance with the princess?"

She feels it coming the way you can look up at the dark skies and say it's going to rain and there's nothing you can do about it, or when you drop your phone into the toilet bowl and watch as it happens in slow motion, and she cries.

It's embarrassing, not because she hasn't cried in front of him before. She did, already had, and this is nothing compared to her teenage drama tears, but it's because she almost forgot it's her birthday and her mother seemed to, also, and nobody really knows her birth date here because nobody bothered to ask so basically, he is the only one who greeted her. And she was going to be fine, with or without greetings, but it's Bellamy and she wants to dance with him.

"Hey, Clarke," he starts. "Please don't cry. You don't want Cage to think he's beaten you down with an essay. You're stronger than that."

"And you're an idiot," she sniffles but laughs. (More like gurgles a laugh because her crying is horrible and squeaky.)

Silence falls around them where he just looks at her with this kind of fondness that's so familiar, it takes her back to their first dance. She hugs her pillow tighter.

"I wish you were here," she says, just barely audible. He hears it, though, and hides his somber grin, ducking his head.

And then he starts tearing up, honest to god tears brimming his eyes. He looks away and tries to subtly wipe away the tears, but she catches him and laughs.

"Shut up," he says, laughing as well. "You were first."

*

A month after Clarke’s nineteenth birthday, Aurora is diagnosed with cancer. The worst kind. It feels like the world is coming down on her and she can’t help it. She wonders how Bellamy and Octavia might feel about this. She imagines even worse than she already does.

It’s a Saturday night and there’s nothing but loud frogs on the background aside from the rain as Bellamy sits there in front of the screen, his head in his hands.

“I want to go home,” he says, voice cracked and weak, and Clarke’s heart breaks even more.

She doesn’t know what to say to that because they both know he can’t. So she lets the downpour outside her dorm take over, a solemn kind of quiet that reminds her of Aurora. She speaks when needed most, but she’s the kind that’s always there in a way that you know she is, but doesn’t impose. Like this warm presence in the chill.

Clarke remembers the weekends when she visited and Aurora’s there with a tray of freshly baked cookies and she almost tackle-hugged her. It’s not difficult to love Aurora, so it’s grueling to battle with the looming dread of it all.

When she dies, it’s after a few months and Bellamy’s back in town. It’s not exactly the way Clarke imagined they would reunite, but she shoves that thought towards the back of her mind and focuses on helping Octavia with the preparation of it all.

It’s after the funeral that she finds him in his old room sitting on the bed, sifting through comic books and history books, and she sits beside him and wounds her arms around his shoulders, holds him there until she feels his forehead against her arm. He shakes in her embrace and she lets him.

After a moment, he lifts his head and looks at her, eyes red and cheeks tear-stained. “I’m glad you’re here,” he tells her, a ghost of a grin etched on his lips. Like he’s trying to appear strong and alright in front of her even when they both know he is far from it.

She nods and gives him a smile. “Anything.”

He leaves the day after that, and it feels like a whirlwind. Like not enough time to mourn, but the next thing she knows, his bags are ready and he’s at the airport pressing a kiss to Octavia’s cheek, and enveloping Clarke into a hug.

It’s like he wasn’t even there, like a passing ghost that left her cold and sad and yearning, that when she goes back to her dorm, everything feels the same. Except that now, she has two dead loved ones and a gaping hole in her chest that he unknowingly carved out. It’s sad and she wants to tell Bellamy, but it doesn’t feel like something he should know, so she keeps it.

Which is the worst decision she’s ever made because a few weeks before her 20th birthday, the country he’s serving in goes on total lockdown. There’s a war, a real one, with the guns and the tanks and all that and Clarke is terrified that she calls Octavia every night to check on her and ask if she’s heard from Bellamy.

The worst thing about this aside from the gnawing feeling in her gut every time she remembers that he might be dying out there is that she’s definitely in love with him. Direly, absolutely, irrevocably in love with him. And he may never know. So she tells Octavia one night in the middle of a phone call.

There’s a silence where she can just hear Octavia thinking. And then…

“I know. I mean, I’ve known since like sixth grade because you’d laugh at the lamest jokes he’s ever made -- like genuinely.”

It’s true, Clarke realizes just now. But she was so young then. “And you’re okay with that?” she asks.

“Clarke, come on. You’re his best friend. He Skypes you almost every single day like he’s not somewhere in the middle of nowhere land and helps you with your equations and shit. And you always tell him whenever he’s being an idiot. You’re the second best thing that’s ever happened to him, honestly.”

Clarke smiles at this. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. Absolutely. Me, being the first, obviously.”

She laughs. “Obviously.”

*

She’s back in town for three days for her birthday and it feels vaguely like home. Except that the swing set is rusty, and the blue house looks somewhat like centuries have passed since someone has lived in it.

Octavia is now the one occupying her couch, having a F.R.I.E.N.D.S. marathon with her, drinking all her Kool Aid and throwing popcorn at the TV whenever Ross makes a douche move. And she’s fine about all of it because she did miss Octavia, but. Well. They did finally make contact with Bellamy a few days ago.

He made it up to them by apologizing and assuring them over and over again that he’s fine and he’s not hurt, profusely. But it was a static-y phone call, and after that, there’s nothing else.

Clarke was prepared to wait longer for his next phone call, so when it comes the third day she’s back home, in the middle of the freaking night, it jolts her out of the bed.

“You’re not in your dorm room,” he greets her with, and she sobers up pretty quickly.

“How did you know that?”

There’s a silence on the other end, and it somehow feels to Clarke like he’s hesitating. “I wanted to surprise you -- you did tell me where to find your spare key. I just… you’re not here --”

“Bellamy.”

“I know I’m a day late for your birthday but I figured it wouldn’t matter because I’m home now, and I have a present, but you’re not here and uh, this is the first place I went to because I got to tell you --

“Bellamy.”

“What?”

She sighs and presses her smile on her pillow. “I love you.”

“I love you, too, Clarke, but listen --

“No, you listen. I’m in love with you. And I think it’s cute that you went to my dorm first, but I did tell you I was coming back home. So really, it’s your fault.”

He’s contemplatively quiet on the other end, but she would be, too, if she ever were in his shoes. To be fair, it did leave her speechless the moment she realized this simple fact, too.

“You’re in love with me,” he says, and she can’t see it, but she knows that there’s a smile on his face just by the tone of his voice.

“Yes,” she replies. “And you don’t have to say anything back. I just want you to know that because the moment I found out I’m in love with you, you’re fighting aliens with a laser gun and you’re out of reach. So.”

“Okay, well. Alright. I’m in love with you, too.”

A laugh, relieved and euphoric, escapes her in a breath, and she feels warm all over -- right to the tip of her toes. “Okay,” she says once more, nodding to herself. The silence that follows is because they’re both too happy, probably stupidly grinning in the dark at nothing, and they’re both ridiculous.

“I’m gonna crash here for the night and then head back down tomorrow morning, just a heads up,” he says, yawn distorting his voice.

“Don’t soil my bed,” she warns.

He snickers. “Nothing’s gonna stop me!”

“Bye, Bellamy.”

“Bye, Clarke. Love you.”

“Yeah, okay. Love you, too.”

She sleeps for another couple of hours and then decides with the brain of a caterpillar that she’s going to head back to campus at the ass crack of dawn just so she can surprise him instead. She makes it there and finds him on her bed, bare back to the ceiling, snoring. Asleep.

She feels the breath get knocked out of her lungs at the realization that he’s here, he’s home, followed by the rush of affection at seeing his face, not pixelated for once, after what felt like an eternity.

She quietly crouches next to the bed, and then kisses him, soft and lingering and featherlight -- like a ghost, that it surprises her when he stirs awake and pulls her in with a hand at the back of her head, deepening the kiss.

It’s slow and languid and reverent, and she opens her mouth to his tongue as if they have been doing this for a long, long time, but also as if this is the first time they’ve ever been kissed. It’s the headiest feeling in the whole world, just because she knows she’s in love with him, and he’s home. For good.

He pulls back, eyes still closed, smiling. “Good morning, princess. Missed me?”

She smacks his arm and he opens his eyes, laughing. “I did, moron.”

He makes to sit up but she pulls him back down, and then moves to stand and then straddle him, weight settling onto the small of his back. He makes this delicious sound at the back of his throat when she bends down to press slow kisses down his nape and shoulders. And then she gets up to his ear and pulls at it with her teeth, light and playful.

“I think we have a lot of catching up to do,” she breathes, and he groans, flipping them over so that she’s the one on the bed and he’s the one hovering above her.

His smile is bright and wide and happy, and she grins, too, unable to help herself.

“Indeed,” he agrees.

*

His present is a pair of bright yellow flat shoes that looks almost the same as the ones she wore on her twelfth birthday, and she doesn’t cry. Just nearly, although Bellamy would argue with everybody that the tears are everywhere.

They drive together back home, and it’s not like driving off into the sunset, per se, because it's the morning and there's nothing on the road but dry grass and sand. But. Close enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you liked it. Let me know by leaving a kudos or a comment down below. Or yell at me on [tumblr](http://hooksandheroics.tumblr.com)! I'm so close to my next thousand, I'm so happy.


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